Louisville's stunning turnaround finishes Syracuse for Big East tourney title

Mar. 16, 2013
|

Syracuse Orange forward James Southerland (43) battles for the ball with Louisville Cardinals forward Chane Behanan (21) during the first half of the championship game at the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. / Debby Wong, USA TODAY Sports

by Eric Prisbell, USA TODAY Sports

by Eric Prisbell, USA TODAY Sports

NEW YORK - The feeling of finality washed through Madison Square Garden tonight, creating the perfect backdrop for Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, the coach who has been with the Big East from its inception, to close out the last Big East tournament as we know it with his sixth championship, a departing nod to tradition.

That narrative played out for a little more than a half, as Syracuse built a 16-point lead largely with hot outside shooting. And then Louisville hit the ignition button and unleashed its full arsenal of weapons, making a compelling case why it deserves the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament.

Louisville executed a stunning turnaround in rallying to blow out Syracuse, 78-61, and will enter the NCAA tournament with as good a chance as any team during this volatile season to win the national championship.

Syracuse's outstanding three-point shooter James Southerland gave the Orange a 16-point advantage a little more than four minutes into the second half. But then Louisville's tenacious, unrelenting defense changed the game's tenor, and in a hurry.

What came next was a flurry of forced turnovers, dunks and assorted momentum-shifting plays. Coach Rick Pitino's full-court pressure helped the Cardinals force 10 turnovers in the first 13 minutes of the second half.

Midway through the half, that 16-point advantage was gone. A few minutes later, Louisville's Peyton Siva hooked up with Kevin Ware on an alley-oop dunk. Louisville's 29-4 run seized control of the game and ruined Boeheim's farewell story line in a Big East final that will be long savored by basketball enthusiasts.

In a few years - Syracuse joins the ACC next season, Louisville the year after that â?? these school basketball powers may collide again in a conference tournament final, perhaps in Greensboro or another locale. But it won't have the same flavor it did Saturday night, with these two iconic coaches under this conference banner and all the memories generated by the sight of both on this stage.

The relationship between Boeheim and Pitino dates back to 1976, with that memorable story of when Boeheim interrupted Pitino's wedding night with a phone call from a hotel lobby. Boeheim wanted to talk to Pitino about the assistant job on his staff. They talked for four hours that night before Pitino finally escaped back to his wife.

These days, Boeheim loves to tell anyone who will listen that Pitino is full of it, at least with about half of what he says about basketball-related matters. And Pitino likes to jab Boeheim for being a tad uncultured before he married Juli, who Pitino says introduced Boeheim to wine and expensive clothes.

What the two national title-winning coaches have agreed on is the disappointment and sadness surrounding the breakup of the Big East. And both are heartened by the fact that the seven tradition-rich Catholic schools finally broke away and are creating an elite basketball conference that Boeheim says "will be as good as any."

About 30 minutes before the start of the final Big East tournament in its current composition, venerable broadcaster Bill Raftery, as much a part of this event as anything, echoed similar sentiments, saying "it is one of those uncomfortable feeling" as the countdown continued to tip-off.

"And it's almost like you tell kids, you've got to get over stuff, you've got to move on, change is inevitable in some case," Raftery said. "Not this type of change. It's a little strange, really. To see something become so powerful on the basketball scene, and then brick-by-brick get taken away, I never thought I would see it. Everyone says, 'It was a great run.' Well, if it was so great a run, then why is it over?"

And it ended amid an electric atmosphere at The Garden and with a much anticipated championship game. Early on, it seemed like a quasi-road game for Louisville inside Madison Square Garden, which was filled with a Syracuse partisan crowd that roared as the Orange raced out to an 8-0 lead.

Before three minutes had elapsed, C.J. Fair and Southerland both made three-pointers for the Orange, prompting Pitino to call a timeout. The Cardinals did not score a point until sharp-shooter Luke Hancock made a three-pointer in transition nearly five minutes into action.

In the final minutes of the first half, Syracuse's Michael Carter-Williams was at the top of the circle with nowhere to go when he tossed up a three-pointer that banked through the hoop. That gave the Orange a 31-19 advantage and more reason to believe it might be Syracuse's night.

Only it wasn't. And when the final buzzer sounded, one last, rather quick handshake on this stage between Pitino and Boeheim, and a future ACC team celebrating inside the world's most famous arena.

You will automatically receive the VisaliaTimesDelta.com Top 5 daily email newsletter. If you don't want to receive this newsletter, you can change your newsletter selections in your account preferences.